A couple of weeks ago we encouraged you to immediately contact your Ohio legislators to vigorously oppose two bills that add sweeping new vaccine mandates for childcare while offering unreasonable and limited vaccine exemptions.

While House members appeared to hear your concerns and amended HB 536 on the floor to remove the requirement that religious and conscientious exemptions to vaccine mandates needed to be "certified" by the child's physician, advanced practice registered nurse, or physician assistant, the Senate version of the bill, SB 381, still guts the conscientious and religious exemption to vaccination for childcare with this same restriction. SB 381 is scheduled for hearings on Tuesday 12/9 and Wednesday 12/10 in the Senate Medicaid, Health and Human Services Committee. Everyone should immediately call their state senator and the members of this committee to oppose SB 381. Vaccine exemptions in current Ohio state law for school aged children appropriately have no such restrictions.

1. Immediately contact your Ohio State Senator and ask them to oppose SB 381. If you are not sure who your state senator is, log into the NVIC Advocacy Portal at http://NVICAdvocacy.org and go to the Ohio State Team Page to see your personal legislators’ contact information automatically displayed. Or you can link to http://www.ohiosenate.gov/senate/index to “Find Your Senator.” If you haven’t registered for the NVIC Advocacy Portal, please do so at http://NVICAdvocacy.org so you can be put on our email list to receive updated action alerts and to be able to access the portal for current information on fighting these bills.

2. Immediately contact the legislative members the Senate Medicaid, Health and Human Services Committee and ask them to oppose SB 381 on Tuesday and Wednesday December 9th and 10th, 2014. (Contact information and talking points listed below) We need you to keep up the pressure!

3. Attend the hearings on December 9th and 10th, 2014 in the Senate Medicaid, Health and Human Services Committee (1 Capitol Square, Columbus, Ohio 43215, parking information) and register to oppose and testify against the bill. Please make it a priority to attend if you are able. Legislators need to see faces and hear opposition from people in person, not just on the phone.

SB 381 will have a 3rd Hearing (Possible amendment/s) with Opponent and Interested Party testimony on Tuesday, December 9, 2014, 3:15 PM in the North Hearing Room.

SB 381 will have a 4th Hearing (Possible amendment/s), Opponent and Interested Party on Wednesday, December 10, 2014, 8:30 AM in the South Hearing Room.

· SB 381 places an unnecessary burden on parents, day-care providers and family day-care homes by adding sweeping new mandates for 14 vaccines that are already available to anyone who wants them. The majority of states don’t require all 14 of these vaccines for day care.

· Religious and conscientious exemptions to vaccination mandates should not have to be certified by a physician, advanced practice registered nurse, or physician assistant. That is what a medical exemption is for. SB 381 imposes an unconstitutional burden on those with sincerely held religious beliefs. Vaccine manufacturers and healthcare providers who administer vaccines are protected in federal law from liability for injuries and deaths caused by vaccines (42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-11(2)), so health care providers should never be appointed as gatekeepers of religious and conscientious exemptions.

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) works diligently to prepare and disseminate our legislative advocacy action alerts and supporting materials. We request that organizations and members of the public forward our alerts in their original form to assure consistent and accurate messaging and effective action. Please acknowledge NVIC as originators of this work when forwarding to members of the public and like-minded organizations. To receive alerts immediately, register at http://NVICAdvocacy.org, a website dedicated to this sole purpose and provided as a free public service by NVIC.